FRUIT AND VEGETABLE NOTES. 



145 



We will now consider an entirely different class of 

 ferns, requiring an entirely different material to grow 

 them successfully. Dnvallia Mooreana is grown with fair 

 success in an open, porous soil, but in no case have I 

 been able to grow it to such dimensions as by using 

 sphagnum moss with a little leaf-mold, as the potting 

 material ; and for growing large specimens of any of the 

 davallias, I am convinced that this is superior to any 

 other material. A large specimen requiring potting was 

 broken up into four pieces last spring and grown as 

 above; one of the pieces now measures seven feet in 

 diameter. The engraving on page 143 will give some 

 idea of the beauty of this fine fern. 



There is perhaps no other branch of the profession so 

 fascinating as growing ferns from the spores, and none 

 that requires more care or delicate handling. The 

 spores should be sown in a glass-covered frame. The 

 soil may be composed of finely-sifted leaf-mold and 



loam in equal parts, and a little sand. They will ger- 

 minate more freely on rough, lumpy peat, but the injury 

 caused in removing the young plants from this material 

 more than counterbalances their better growth. Give a 

 thorough watering when the bed is prepared, before 

 sowing; and thenceforth, until the plants appear, supply 

 moisture by means of saucers of water in the frame. 

 Keep close unless excessive moisture should necessitate 

 airing. After the plants appear, more air should be 

 given. It is unnecessary to raise them in this way where 

 only a plant or two of a kind are required, save of 

 varieties unprocurable otherwise ; but for commercial 

 purposes, where large quantities of a variety are desir- 

 able, growing from spores is decidedly the better method 

 of propagation. They make shorter, more stocky and 

 better plantsthan divisions, were that mode of supplying 

 the quantity practicable. 



ConnecSiiiil . John Dallas. 



FRUIT AND VEGETABLE NOTES. 



CONTRIBUTED BY WII 



=^AR BACK in the days of 

 boyhood, in my grand- 

 mother's garden, was 

 the first cultivated straw- 

 berry-bed I ever saw. 

 As near as I can recol- 

 lect, it measured about 

 12x12 feet. The berries 

 were white, and must 

 have belonged t o the 

 alpine family. The lar- 

 gest picking I remember was a pint-bowl half full. 

 This happened on an occasion when the house was 

 full of company. The berries were too scarce and 

 precious to be distributed among small children like 

 myself. It must have been more than 60 years 

 ago. My father used to take me with him to New 

 York when he had a load of produce to sell, and as 

 soon as he thought it safe used to send me alone. 



I well remember the first cultivated strawberries I 

 ever saw in Washington Market, at that time by all odds 

 the greatest fruit and vegetable market on this continent. 

 It was some time before 1840. I have no doubt that 

 more cultivated strawberries are now carried into that 

 city in a single day during the berry harvest than were 

 ever seen within the city limits during its entire history 

 previous to 1840. I do not know whether the receipts 

 of New York exceed those of Chicago, but a few days 

 since, one of the large dealers of the latter city told me 

 that last summer the receipts of strawberries during one 

 week averaged 100 cars per day. What a change ! It 

 seems like one of the wildest of dreams. If some good 

 spirit had come to me when I was ten years old and told 

 me that I should live to see strawberries in their season 



E-AWAKE GARDENERS. 



just as plentiful and free on my table as potatoes and 

 bread and butter, and that I would sometime pick for 

 market more than 100 bushels in a day, and further, that 

 I should also be a member of Congress, governor, for- 

 eign minister, or even president, I might in my youthful 

 ambition have thought the phophecy all possible except 

 the strawberry part. 



Hovey's Seedling was introduced more than 50 years 

 ago, and the Albany Seedling followed a few years later. 

 The introduction of the Hovey was the first great for- 

 ward stride in strawberry cultivation in this country. 

 The Wilson made its first appearance in the west about 

 i860. Since that time new varieties have been intro- 

 duced and lauded as better than their predecessors, until 

 any one who undertook to keep the best only, and relied 

 upon reports of the friends of the new kinds for his in- 

 formation, would be about sure to lose all his pocket- 

 money, and do fairly well if he kept out of a lunatic 

 asylum. During these years we have had many new 

 varieties of raspberries, but it may well be doubted 

 whether we have to-day any red raspberry that in qual- 

 ity will excel the old red Antwerp. 



Less improvement has been made in blackberries than 

 in any other kind of small fruits. The Kittatinny used 

 to grow wild on my father's farm in the east, and it 

 seems to me that I have never seen any blackberry else- 

 where that excelled it either in size or yield. 



So far as cultivation of garden crops is concerned, 

 perhaps the greatest advance has been made in imple- 

 ments. The improvements in cultivators, harrows, hoes, 

 shovels, spades, rakes, etc. , over those used 30 years ago, 

 have made it possible to produce crops very much 

 cheaper. Then I was compelled to rake 15 to 20 acres 

 of my garden by hand. We used the best steel rakes I 

 could buy. Now they lie in their racks in the tool-house, 

 almost untouched. Their work is all well done with 



